1. Field of Invention
This invention is directed to one method and one apparatus to add security protection to an RFID. More specifically, this invention teaches to protect an RFID from being moved or disturbed without authority when deployed at a specific position.
2. Prior Art
Three years after the terror attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, the U.S. Government has done a great deal to make the country more secure, but America is, and may always be, a nation at risk. For one thing, the country's transportation system is still perilously exposed.
The United States has been a leader in trying to make world trade open and efficient, inexpensive and reliable. Much of the world's commerce moves in cargo containers—18 million containers are constantly on the move in the world, with 7 million cargo containers arriving in the United States every year. The risk is that virtually anyone in this country can receive a container which can be filled with up to 32 tons of hazardous material, and there are very few safeguards to check it. Last year, for example, ABC News tested port security by loading depleted uranium into a container in Indonesia and shipping it successfully through the port of Los Angeles.
The real concern is not that its response would diminish gradually and people would be disturbed or harmed only in the restricted local vicinity, but rather it is that it is conceivable a few other same containers are to be moved into US ports either concurrently or sequentially. Two simultaneous attacks targeting different ports of entry in different parts of the country would simply multiply the terror and the chaos. The consequences are thus global and catastrophic. After the occurrence of the first or the second event, the likely reaction from the U.S. government is to shut down U.S. seaports to sort and check things out. However, by closing US seaports, for a period of two to three weeks, say, the world's trade system is to be essentially shut down, so do the US manufacturing and retailing sectors. Wal-Mart will then have no sales, since there is nothing left on the shelves, and General Motors will then have no jobs, since no assembly is possible for making cars and trucks.
A possible solution is to use a radioactive scanner to generate an interior image of the cargo container. In that way it allows an inspector to see into the container if it carries bananas and not some big black object, for example. However, a radioactive probe will create side effects influencing seriously human health, bringing about contamination of the shipped bananas, and leaving behind tons of nuclear wastes in the planet earth, although the radiation levels may be low.
Another solution is to establish a tracking system along with every of the containers to be shipped worldwide. For this purpose RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags are attached to the cargo containers which carry proprietary information to be managed through networked computers. Although an RFID is able to identify a cargo container, it does not imply security. Like a conventional infrared bar-code label, an RFID can be removed, tampered with, or counterfeited in easy ways, and the cargo items inside the container can be altered or substituted intentionally and unconsciously. This renders an RFID useless when talking about security.
Other situations may also require an RFID to be equipped with security. For example, in the near future a passport will carry an RFID to provide unique identification. However, an RFID can be transplanted from one passport to another with its contents altered or substituted concurrently thereby defeating fidelity and hence security.